There's a Build-a-Prairie website where the students can learn about the plants that make up this habitat. If you google Build-a-Prairie, it shoudl come up. I have also had them create advertisements looking for a wife/husband, similar to what Jacob does to advertise for Sarah. I have also had them create and write descriptive winter scenes of what the prairie would like like based on clues from the book. Students could also do character sketches of their favorite character, using the traits and proof found in the book. We also follow this up by showing the videos of Sarah, Plain and Tall and Skylark. There are actually four books in the series now, Sarah, Plain and Tall, Skylark, Caleb's Story and More Perfect Than the Moon. All of them are great read alouds, too.

My kids have created pictures of what they believe the winter looks like on the prairie from the descriptions in the book that they visualize. We also have created advertisements for a wife like Jacob did, and studied the wildflowers of the prairie and made a paper quilt of them because several are described in the book. We see the video at the end and the students compare and contrast which version they liked better, the book of the movie.

1. Having students choose a few new vocabulary words from each chapter. They can then write what they think the word means, other words it reminds them of and then finally what the word means.

2. They can try an activity called " A Picture is worth a thousand words". Draw two pictures that Sarah may have drawn to send to her brother.

3. Go to puzzlemaker.com and use the vocabulary words from the story to make a word search.

4. In Chapter seven, Sarah talks to Maggie about missing her brother and home in Maine. Have the students write a Cinquain about a favorite friend or relative who you miss seeing. When completed, cut the poem out and put on a piece of colored construction paper.

Those are just a few ideas. Im sure you will come up with several that your students will enjoy.

I'm glad to see that there are some creative Art ideas for Sarah, Plain, and Tall because honestly, my kids did not enjoy this book at all. I like it but they said it was "confusing, uninteresting, and some of the words were hard." (3rd graders!)

The final book in the series came out not too long ago, called Grandfather's Dance. Also, MacLachlan has a nice author's message in the end about the characters kids come to know and love in this series that my class enjoyed reading and discussing.